The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a powder that may be reconstituted as a fruit drink by addition of water to the powder. More specifically, the invention relates to the use of dextran as a drying agent for the fruit juices that are to be rendered to a powder.
It has long been a goal of the food industry to produce a powdered drink that tastes the same as real fruit juice. It has been a further goal to be able to make such a powdered drink from the juice of real fruit. The term "fruit juice" as used herein refers to the juice of citrus fruits that contain fructose.
Attempts to produce a powder from fruit juice have not been successful because traditional powder rendering processes cause the fruit juice to become a sticky nonfree-flowing product, rather than a powder. For example, lyophilization or spray drying of the fruit juice does not produce the sought after powder because the powder rendering processes do not powderize the fructose in the fruit juice.
The method of the present invention avoids the problems of the prior art by using dextran as a drying agent for the fructose. Further, and perhaps more significantly, the juice produced from the powder manufactured by the method of the present invention tastes like real fruit juice.
The term "dextran" refers to water soluble polymers having .alpha.-D-glucopyranosyl units polymerized predominately in a .alpha., 1.fwdarw.6 linkage. Dextran polymers may have molecular weights ranging from 10,000 to several million. Typically, the dextran polymers are synthesized and fractionated so as to produce dextran polymers having a predetermined range of molecular weights.
Dextran has various uses depending on its molecular weight. For example, high purity, USP grade dextrans (1,000,000-40,000,000 molecular weight) have found application as surgical sponges. Clinical grade dextrans (40,000-75,000 molecular weight) have found extensive use as blood volume expanders. At lower molecular weights it has found use as a stabilizer or bodying agent in foods. For example, complex mixtures containing dextran have been used as a thickeners for powdered milk (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,855,149 to Pucci,et al.), and as stabilizers for fruit juice powders (See U.S. Pat. No. 4,996,196 to Mitsuhashi, et al.).
Accordingly it is an object of the present invention to provide a novel method of manufacturing a powder from fruit juice that obviates the problems of the prior art.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method of manufacturing a powder for a juice drink by using as a drying agent high purity dextran having a predetermined molecular weight.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a novel method of manufacturing a powder for a juice drink by dissolving dextran in a fruit juice wherein the amount of dextran added is inversely related to the molecular weight of the dextran.
These and other objects and advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art to which the invention pertains from a perusal of the claims and of the following detailed description of preferred embodiments.